I can’t believe it’s already the last day of 2015. It’s been a whirlwind year, and an even busier past few months filled with travel, work, settling in, new school and lots more stuff I can’t even remember.

But we were lucky to end the year with a visit from Grandma L, and we managed to fit in a few day trips around the area. Here are the highlights:

We spent a day in Gruyères, a small medieval village best known for the cheese of the same name. As it turns out, it is also home to the H.R. Giger museum – that was a weird discovery. I don’t usually expect to see hypersexualized alien torsos and spinal columns on display in front of a stone house from the 1400s. But the cheese was great, and the adorable local castle even better – straight out of a movie set. We capped off our trip with a visit to the Cailler chocolate factory, whose highlight was a 20-minute animatronic history of chocolate followed by all-you-can-eat chocolate tasting.

Beautiful view from the cheese factory parking lot

Cheese making tour

Cheese at different stages

How to make cheese

The secret ingredient is…. Magic. Thanks for the science, Gruyere

In the village

Grandma enjoying the shopfronts

Wasn’t expecting to see this museum!

Giger alien in the village

View from the castle walk

Castle courtyard – straight out of a movie

In the courtyard

My favorite part is the mossy roof behind

In the castle kitchen. The oven was definitely big enough to fit a witch.

Kids in the WALK-THROUGH fireplace

Armor on display

The baliff’s room

The wall decorations were painted on

Another huge fireplace

Hedge maze and mountain view from the balcony

Music room

Hunting room

Knights room

This guy? He makes us giggle

Courtyard from above

Turret corner

Castle chapel

View to the village from the castle

We stopped for a fondue lunch in town

On the way to the chocolate factory

At the Cailler chocolate factory

We enjoyed the all-you-can-eat chocolate tasting on the tour

In the lead up to the holidays, we headed to the Christmas market in Montreux and took the funicular train up the mountain to meet Santa. Montreux is a beautiful area, with a view of the whole valley and across the lake. Well, apparently it is. It was completely foggy while we were there, so we only saw blank whiteness all around. BigB spent the whole train ride texting me “The Langoliers are coming… Langoliers…” The market itself was cute – personally, I was on a mulled wine tour of the various kiosks, which I’m pleased to say was quite successful. Then we had a weird potato and cheese stew called tartiflette for lunch that had very little flavour other than salt – so basically like all Swiss dishes.

Up the mountain, we arrived at Santa’s Grotto. First we had to walk down a poorly lit underground hallway for nearly 500m until we emerged into some kind of tiny WWII bunker that was decorated for Christmas. The kids didn’t really want to visit Santa, so that was a bust. But at least BigB got to sit on the big guy’s lap. Not sure what he wished for…Then we stopped partway down the mountain at another little Christmas village on the grounds of a castle, where the kids watched a play (in French). LittleB’s assessment: “It had its ups and downs. But I don’t really know what it was about.” J said it was about “magic” and “an accordion”. Sounds like exactly how I would imagine a French christmas play. The adults hung around outside and enjoyed the wood fire and watched the clouds start to clear away for a little sunset magic of our own.

Montreux is the ‘Swiss Riviera’ – funny to see a lot of palm trees there

Montreux is also Freddie Mercury’s adopted hometown

Christmas market

Mulled wine tour stops here

Tartiflette. Those bowls cost 14 francs EACH

Creepy animatronic bears in the bunker hallway

We made it to Santa’s WWII bunker

Santa’s office. They were giving out tiny oranges as the treat. I love Switzerland

Luckily Santa spoke English

He said his Christmas gift for Santa was not putting his full weight on the poor man’s knee

Christmas village

Christmas village castle

I’m not going to lie, the Christmas donkeys were a highlight of the trip

Outdoor fire to warm our chilly fingers

Clouds are starting to clear…

A little bit of sunset

Selfie on the mountain

We figured it was worth getting the official Santa photo for 16 FRANCS since we went all that way

And suddenly it was Christmas!

The tree is up!

Everything is ready for Santa

We watched the Christmas moon and J said she could “smell Christmas magic” in the air. It was wood smoke.

This year, I woke up the kids to open their stockings. They weren’t getting up early enough.

Let the presents begin!

Awesome Neil Gaiman book

Her new favorite things in the whole world

Teehee, the Swiss Ticket to Ride

Xmas painting set

SO MUCH lego this year

B enjoying the Christmas beer he bought at the Canadian kiosk at the Montreux market

It’s H.R. Giger, and it must have been an awesome sight! Have a good 2016! How’s that 100 pushups thing coming along? Still got some time left, at least here!
Also, and completely unrelated, they got Quebec beers in Switzerland? The scenery is epic, magnificent.

Lol you’re right I should have proofread myself better. The 100 push-ups thing failed miserably – maybe I’ll reset for 2016. 😉 We bought that Maudite specifically at a French Canadian market kiosk – he was so excited to find it!